Readers become confused by the essential differences between dominions and colonies and protectorates. The British Empire, when it existed, embraced all three. ‘Dominions’ was the name used for…
Category: Commonwealth of Nations
What was the British ‘Raj’?
Raj is Hindi for ‘rule’. The East India Company (always known as The Company) had opened up this vast Asian territory since the latter part of the 18th…
Victoria, the Queen Empress
I am lucky enough to have a wife who found an almost complete collection of early Victorian lithographs in a back street of Lymington. They are dated and…
English monarchs from the Norman Line to the Windsors
Before a Norman Duke successfully invaded England, there had been in the Danish or Viking Line six kings including the last two, Edward the Confessor (started building Westminster…
What was ‘Apartheid’?
The word itself is Afrikaans or South African Dutch and means ‘separateness’. In the 50s of the last century a morbid joking pun was made…
The Malayan Campaign and Emergency
The campaign was a military action in South-East Asia between December 1941 and August, 1945 during the Second World War. General Tomoyuki secured free passage…
Post-War poverty in Socialist Britain (1945 – 51)
It was a surrealist time to be British. Six years of total war had left the people with their men and womenfolk dead, wounded and crippled as…
General Templer & the Malayan Emergency
Gerald Templer, a boy destined for military honours if ever there was one, was born in 1898. After joining up as a boy soldier he rose rapidly through…